The First Soufflé
by frombluetored
Summary: She refused to give into the sadness corrupting her heart. She refused to give the anger or the misery a voice. She was stronger than that. She would be stronger than that. Because there was a reason she had survived. There was a reason she was here, and she didn't know what it was, but she knew she'd been on her way to it her entire life. (Oswin Oswald, from start to finish.)


**A/n: **My personal take on Oswin Oswald's story, from start to finish. Because I think she's just wonderful. Hope you enjoy! Feedback is always appreciated.

* * *

It all started with a whispered word, delivered carefully and passionately in the middle of the night.

"Run."

Oswin pushed her question past her sobs.

"What do you mean?" She demanded. Her hair was sticking to her tear-soaked face and she was tired. She was tired and lost and—how would running away make her any more found?

But she knew exactly what the other girl meant.

"Run before it's too late, Oswin. Run because I love you enough to tell you to." Nina insisted. It was obvious the words were difficult for her to utter, because they bobbed up and down in tempo, like some sort of buoy tossing waywardly in the sea.

And because Nina was the most sensible friend and lover she'd ever had, she knew that was the best advice she could have ever gotten. And she listened.

In the morning, her tears were dry, and she left without even saying goodbye.

That was her very first mistake.

* * *

She left behind the remains of a burnt soufflé, a jar of bobby pins, and her heart.

She sat in the interview waiting room and nervously wrung her hands, trying to remind herself that she didn't need any of those things where she was going.

She and Nina shared a ten year romance, a cat named Garfunkle, and a lot of shared mistakes. She wondered if the other girl counted this as just another blunder.

When she was called back, she had to take a few deep breaths before she entered the interview room. It wasn't that she didn't have confidence in herself, she did. She learned a long time ago that she could do anything she set her mind to. It was just that she knew this was her last chance, somehow. She had a keen understanding inside of herself that if they rejected her, she had failed somehow. It did not feel like a failure she could comfortably make, because for whatever reason, she found her heart beating as if the entire weight of the world rested on the success of this one meeting.

They asked her the standard questions. She told them about her education (pretty standard) and her test scores (a little less than standard, to put it modestly). She had spent the past six summers teaching computing basics to children, and it was that fact that sealed the deal. They kissed her cheeks and passed her an integration folder with all she needed to know as Starship Alaska's newest Junior Entertainment Manager.

She hid in the bathroom after the interview, the file clutched tightly to her chest. She sank to the floor in the stall and sat there with her back to the wall for ten minutes, her stomach tight and her soul wound like some sort of impatient clock. It wasn't the first time that she felt like she was dreadfully late for something important, but no matter how hard she thought, she couldn't think of anything she had forgotten. And yet the feeling remained that there was something extremely important that she was supposed to be doing.

* * *

Nina caved two days before the ship was to set off.

Oswin leaned against the wall and bit her lip as Nina's voice filled the room from the message recorder.

"I meant what I said, Oswin. I do want you to live the life you've always wanted, but I've realized something. I want us to live it together." She began, and Oswin could feel her heart breaking, which didn't make much sense to her because she was certain she'd left it back home. "The bed is cold without you and I cry each morning I wake up to a smoke-free kitchen. I miss your opera music, I miss the flour residue on the floor, and I miss you. I'm so sorry about your dad, but I think I wasn't thinking when I told you to do this. You'll have so much more time than he did. Stay here, with me, with your mom. We can all run together, yeah?"

Oswin pressed her face into her hands, her heart leaking something toxic into her chest. It ached.

Nina's voice cracked.

"I know you're there, Oswin. Please, pick up." She pressed, and when Oswin didn't do anything, the tears filled out her thin voice. "I love you." She wept.

With one quick, calculated movement, Oswin punched a series of symbols into the keypad behind her and shut off the recorder's circuit. Nina's voice faded from the room and Oswin wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach. She choked against the sobs she didn't want to voice, but she didn't call Nina back. She lay beside the hologram machine all night, wishing for a sight of Nina, but she made no move to message her. Because what was there to say? For all her love, for all her longing, for all her fear, she couldn't get herself to stay behind with that girl. She couldn't find the words to tell Nina, her very first crush and her longest friend and most devoted lover, that her love for her was not enough. Oswin's love for her wasn't any match for the screams inside of her that insisted, day after day, night after night, that there was something important she had to do, something that mattered more than anything else. And it didn't matter that Nina was the one who was there for her throughout it all. It didn't matter that Nina was the one who held her while she cried or practically saved her life, for all intents and purposes. Nothing mattered except for the fact that Oswin couldn't sit still and she couldn't rest and she knew—she _knew_—that if she didn't run now, she would never run ever again, and every moment would be a slow, drawn out torment.

She left Nina's pictures out of her suitcase as she finished packing that morning because, yes, that internal mission mattered more to her than love. That was her second mistake.

She felt like a machine monster for the rest of the week.

* * *

It was the children who eventually brought her back to life.

They calmed the restless nagging inside Oswin's mind and reminded her what it felt like to care about someone again. She escorted them to the infirmary when they injured themselves and encouraged them when they failed. She played games with them and offered them advice when they were frightened. She made sure all the Junior Entertainers were treating the children kindly and respectively.

And they got underneath her skin, the children did. They burrowed themselves down there without Oswin even letting down her guard once.

It was Jewel Polanizi who burrowed down further than all the rest. She was a wild, aching dreamer, who made up the most ridiculous fantasies during the day and dreamed the most terrible things at night. She took a liking to Oswin, more so than all the rest, and Oswin took responsibility for the girl without even fully knowing why. It became her job to make sure she wasn't bullied too badly or overlooked too often during the day, and eventually, it became her job to soothe her at night when the nightmares got to be too much.

This one had been about something Oswin was all too familiar with: getting lost.

She wrapped her arm around the frail, shaking girl's shoulders and kept her voice down low as she spoke.

"Everyone in the whole world is afraid of that, did you know?" She asked her.

Jewel sniffed and Oswin felt her look up at her in the dark.

"Really? Even the grown-ups? Even you?"

_Especially me, _Oswin wanted to say, but this was not about her.

"Especially the grown-ups." Oswin reassured her. She had an uncomfortable feeling for a moment, sort of like something creeping along her spine, and she felt that she had already had this conversation once before. But the familiar feeling of déjà vu vanished fairly quickly. "Here, let's lie back down. Let me tell you a story."

Jewel grinned in the darkness. Oswin could just make it out from the floating nightlight above them. She smiled back and tucked the sheets around her tiny shoulders. She readjusted herself on the edge of the bed and began smoothing Jewel's fair hair back as she thought. She never knew where her stories came from, but the children loved them, and that was good enough for her.

"Once upon a time, there was king who controlled the entire universe." She began. She felt her heart rate increase just a little, enough to let her know that this story was going to be just the ticket for poor Jewel. "He was brave and kind and understood what it was like to be scared. And best of all, he really, truly listened to those who sought his help. When people spoke to him, he made them feel like they were the most important person in the entire world."

Jewel's voice was equally sleepy and intrigued.

"That sounds nice. Sometimes grown-ups make kids feel dumb."

"Not this man, not ever." Oswin promised. "He could see the entire universe all at once and so he knew each time someone got lost."

Jewel interrupted her. "How did he know the difference between being lost and just wandering?"

Oswin hesitated. "Well," she said, and then it came to her with ease. "He listened for their fear. When you wander, you aren't scared."

"But when you're lost you are scared, big time." Jewel added.

Oswin grinned. "Right." She said. She continued. "Each time he saw someone was lost, he conspired to make them found again. And sometimes it didn't happen quite the way the person who was lost was expecting. Sometimes he came later than they would have wanted, and sometimes he even arrived early, way before they were even lost at all. Sometimes he saved them in subtle ways that those who were lost never even would have considered to have been saving at all. But always he made them found, always he showed them how to get back home again."

She could sense Jewel slipping deeper and deeper into unconsciousness.

"And you want to know what the best part is, Jewel?" She asked. She heard a noncommittal _hmmm?_ in response.

"He's real." She murmured.

Letting the children into her heart was her third mistake.

Subconsciously believing her own lies was her forth.

* * *

When they realized they were going to crash, they were led to the escape pods.

The red lights lining the metal hallways flashed on and off ominously. The children covered their ears against the wailing of the sirens. Jewel wept.

"Come along, it's fine," Oswin reassured them.

But somehow, she knew it wasn't.

The children were led to their own escape pod, along with the Junior Entertainers and doctors. Oswin was led to the escape pod with the higher ranking crew members, managers and leaders of certain aspects of the ship. She wrapped her thick jacket tighter around her and reminded herself that she could survive anything she put her mind to. One crew member began weeping as they fell. She closed her eyes and covered her ears, and she thought briefly of Nina, of her mother, but then she was thinking of nothing at all except the weightless, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as they fell. All was not well.

The rest was like a dream.

Somehow, she ended up alone.

All she knew was that the surface of the planet was achingly cold. She shook so hard her teeth slammed together painfully, and she couldn't feel her hands.

When she blinked, she saw corpses, dead on impact. When she reopened her eyes, she saw nothing.

Her hands were so numb she almost fell when climbing the ladder.

She felt a deep sense of overwhelming fear, so deep and sickening that she lost her grip, and then—

No, she stayed in the ship.

It made no sense to her at the time why she should have stayed. But she could only feel gratitude for this when they crashed. The part she was in broke off and buried itself somewhere underground, and she had a bad feeling that she was the only person who hadn't died on impact.

The first day trapped inside was hysterical for Oswin.

She used the technology at her disposal to try and contact the others. She spent all day in front of the screens, her index finger holding down the silver button, calling to those who had been dead for a long time over and over again. _Please, _she begged, her voice breaking, _I don't know where I am. Please. Where are the children?_

She allowed herself to cry until she couldn't hold her eyes open any longer, and then she slipped into sleep, but she found there was no sense of relief in it at all.

The first time they came was that very first night. She heard their halting, crude shrieks in the corner of her mind as she slept. She sputtered and jerked out of sleep, her heart pounding in her head, and all she could think of was that she could not let them in. She couldn't let them get to her.

She spent the rest of the night digging around supply boxes until, miraculously, she came up with sheets of wood and nails. She resisted the urge to cover her ears with her hands and cry and spent the early morning nailing board after board to the entrance to the ship instead.

_Oswin, _Nina had once said, _I envy your ability to react. _

Well, she wasn't going to let her down now.

* * *

She had recordings of the opera Carmen, plenty of food provisions, and an empty heart.

She spent the first week crying into the PA system, pleading for help. It was her weakest moment. All she could see were the lifeless, small bodies of the children she felt responsible for, and all she could feel was the overwhelming worry that she was soon to reach that same fate.

By the end of that week, she was absolutely hopeless. She had never felt more alone in her life, not ever. It was the type of loneliness that could never be understood until one has lived it, because it wasn't just a lack of compassion or understanding. It was a complete and total lack of human presence or interaction. She spoke to no one, she saw no one, she was slightly convinced that she too was no one.

She remembered Nina's words at the start of the second week. She dug out a slightly dodgy tape recorder, old enough technology to have only been included for emergency purposes, and spent the afternoon fiddling around with the wires until it worked.

She held the button down, her voice quivering.

"My name is Oswin Oswald. I have been crashed here for nine days. It is assumed that everyone else on the ship is dead." She started. She let up on the record button after that, her hand going as weak as her strength. She pressed the heels of her hands over her stinging eyes. She pressed it down once more. "I am alone here, and scared." She stared at the screens and buttons on the wall ahead of her. She remembered the way Nina's hands shook as she hugged her that night, the night she pleaded with her to run away. This hadn't been her plan, this wasn't ever her intention. But it was her reality, and what else was there to do but whatever she could at this point?

She rose and recounted once more. She had recordings of the opera Carmen, ingredients for soufflés, and a still-beating heart.

"But I am not helpless nor am I hopeless." She said, and her strength was found once more.

* * *

She measured her life in cups of flour and in broken eggs.

"I dreamed of my mother last night," she said into the recorder. She watched the oven from her black chair, picturing her half-baked soufflé thriving. Someone once told her that anything you wished for would come true. "She told me the secret to soufflé baking. Upon waking, I realized her advice to use a laser for maximum baking success was probably a little over-eager."

She smiled to herself and crossed her legs, looking back at the screens, making sure to keep her internal clock locked on the time left for the soufflé. She began her second favorite activity: meddling with the Daleks.

"Dreamed of Nina last night. For a bit. But then they came again, and I couldn't feel anything at all." She typed a string of code into the keyboard quickly, peering intently at the map of the Asylum that came up on the screen. She scanned over it, still somehow hopeful that she'd see something this time, but found nothing out of the ordinary. She entertained herself by hacking into the path web and making a particularly rancid Dalek decide to run into the wall over and over again. Not enough to hurt him, but enough for him to finally yell: "What is the meaning of this? Explain! Explain!" Unfortunately, he was the only Dalek she could get to listen to her thus far. Still time, though.

She was great at teasing and hacking and, honestly, not much else.

She went back to her recorder.

"Sometimes not being able to feel anything at all feels good."

But, sometimes, it felt a little too much like anger for her liking.

* * *

On the hundredth day, she celebrated by burning yet another soufflé.

That night, when she was halfway dreaming, they began to beat away on her walls more insistently than ever. _Let us in! Let us in!_

And, for whatever reason, she suddenly thought that maybe she should. It was exhausting, keeping them out this long. And even though she was trying her hardest to keep herself busy and stay in high spirits, it was getting harder and harder as time went on. It was getting more difficult to hold onto hope.

Re-nailing the boards was more draining than ever that night, and when she finally fell asleep, she was so angry she cried. And still she wasn't quite sure what it was that she was angry at in the first place.

* * *

There was something out there that she loved deeply.

She knew it had to be true, because she had been alone for over two hundred days, and she hadn't gone mad yet. She hadn't gone mad simply because she knew she couldn't, she knew there was something coming, something worth holding onto.

If anything, she reasoned, a deep sense of purpose was enough to keep anyone hanging on.

On day 243, she forgot Nina's face and the sound of her mother's voice.

She crouched in the corner for a weak five minutes, panicking to the point of being paralyzed. She couldn't move and she couldn't breathe and she couldn't think. _Who am I?_

But she wasn't one to let herself break, not once she'd made it this far. Because just like she knew deep down that there was something she loved deeply, she knew that there was something that loved her deeply as well. Enough to help her fight those voices and pounds at night.

She used the opera to drown out their voices, and then swung in her hammock.

"I don't remember Nina's face, but that's okay." She lied. "I don't remember my mom's voice, either, but that's okay too. Because I'll see them again, and when I do, I will appreciate them even more because of it."

She smiled at the ceiling.

* * *

She grew restless. She spent a month dissecting the path web and the technology of the Asylum. She learned it so intimately she sometimes fell asleep to the vision of the winding circuits. Growing up, her knack with computers had won her respect. Now, it was keeping her sane.

Her recorder diary could only provide so much solace. She began writing letters to Nina and her mother. But sometimes it was so hard to talk to them directly that it was like a drilling pain inside of her. It was difficult because she knew they wouldn't be able to write back. She wanted to know what was going on with them, what they were doing, how they were, more than she wanted almost anything else. She hoped they were okay. More than likely, they had accepted her as dead a while ago. She'd always been the more hopeful one.

On day 300, she remembered her bedtime story to Jewel.

She lied to herself again, and again, and again.

"It wasn't a story." She informed her recorder. "There really is a man or woman like that. They'll be anyone who comes and saves me."

But no one came, and her soufflés burned. She could only turn Carmen up so loudly, and it wasn't quite so efficient at drowning out their cries anymore. Each night, she got a little more of that urge to just let them in, and it terrified her more than anything else.

"I am Oswin Oswald." She screamed to them through the door. "I am Oswin Oswald and you can't have me!"

She wasn't sure why she felt so special, or why she should think that she didn't deserve to be taken by them when everyone else had been. There was nothing to set her apart from anyone, except perhaps her computer skills, but what did that matter? Why had she lived while everyone else had died?

That became a question she couldn't let herself wonder.

* * *

"Nina, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You were right." That was her recording for day 312.

Her soufflé collapsed when she opened the oven too early. She missed the sight of the rising sun. She longed for someone, anyone. It had been three hundred and twelve days since she'd heard another human voice. It had been three hundred and twelve days since she'd held or been held by anyone. Sometimes, at night, she doubted that she existed at all. If no one was here to remember her, was she real? Was she? Had she ever been?

She dreamed that her and Nina's cat, Garfunkle, died. All alone, without anyone he loved around him.

She realized, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, that more than likely that was a vision of her future.

She refused to say those things out loud anymore. She refused to give into the sadness corrupting her heart. She refused to give the anger or the misery a voice. She was stronger than that. She would be stronger than that. Because there was a reason she had survived. There was a reason she was here, and she didn't know what it was, but she knew she'd been on her way to it her entire life.

"All I wanted was to travel," she said out loud, to the empty room. She heard the forever-present sound of the Daleks as they ordered her to let them in. She locked her hands over her ears. "That was all I ever wanted."

It occurred to her that what she wanted, and what she was destined to do, were two very, very different things.

* * *

On day 342, she made her first successful soufflé since crashing.

She twirled in elation around the command room, humming along with Carmen, her face aching from smiling. She turned on the PA system.

"Oi! I made a soufflé! Ha!" She celebrated.

But, of course, Daleks didn't know what soufflés even were, so no one celebrated with her. Later, with a portion of the soufflé and a fork in front of her, she hacked back into the system and played Carmen over the speakers. It was almost like a party, except her guests wanted her dead.

"I couldn't have done it without my lovely friends—the Daleks!" She called, clapping slowly and sarcastically. "Seriously, you guys have gone above and beyond. Bravo."

That night, she couldn't fathom how something as small as a successful soufflé could make her so incredibly happy. She worried, deep down, that she'd never be that happy ever again.

She was almost right.

* * *

She took the soufflé as a sign that things were turning around. She ate it, although she found that it didn't taste anything like she remembered her mother's tasting. It didn't taste like much at all. But that didn't cripple her enthusiasm a bit, because this was her first victory in three hundred and forty-two days.

The happiness from that success sustained her for a while, even though she didn't manage to repeat the success no matter how hard she tried. On day 363, she was tearing slowly at the seams, but was refusing to let go.

"Day 3-6-3: the terror continues." She recounted. Sometimes during the night, they'd tried to get in again. She hardly even heard them this time, but when she woke, many of her boards were missing. It made her feel uneasy.

She recounted her day, only allowing herself to rest after her thousandth failed soufflé attempt.

"Oh, and it's my mum's birthday. Happy birthday, mum." She said, even though she knew her mother would never hear it. But she had to hope that, somewhere, she could feel it. "I did make you a soufflé, but it was too beautiful to live."

If living here alone had taught her anything, it was that most things were.

When the screaming started again, she was ready. It was a reflex now. She blasted Carmen as loudly as it would go and covered her ears, preparing to escape to a world where she was free.

A little later, she went back to measuring out ingredients for another soufflé.

"No matter," she told her recorder. "I'll just try again. It takes quite a lot of failure to create a success." She paused thoughtfully. "And quite a lot of death to make a life, as it seems."

She was glad that at least she wasn't too beautiful to live.

* * *

Truthfully, she almost forgot to breathe when she heard his voice.

"Hello? Hello, Carmen? Hello?"

Oswin froze in the kitchen, her heart beginning to race. She followed the sound of his voice, peeking back at the screens. She felt herself freezing for a moment.

"Hello?" She breathed, to herself more than anything.

"Come in, come in! Come in, Carmen!" The voice called, and with that Oswin was dashing across to the controls.

"Hello! Yes, yes, sorry!" She kneeled down and pressed a button and knob, her heart jogging. "Do you read me?"

His voice came through, clear and eager.

"Yes, reading you loud and clear!" He said, and nothing had ever felt like more of a relief. "Identify yourself and your status." He requested.

Oswin stood and couldn't stop a smile from coming up on her face, even though she knew deep down she should be a bit more cautious. She wanted to ask him _do you know yours is the first voice I have heard in over three hundred days?_, but that wasn't what came out.

"Hello! Are you real? Are you actually, properly real?" She asked, because it was still possible that she had gone insane.

His response was the most wonderful thing she'd heard in her entire life. She had no doubts of that.

"Yes, confirmed. Actually, properly real." She could hear the smirk in his voice somehow, like she'd seen it a million times and matched the cadence of his voice with it.

The words couldn't be stopped then. They spilled out of her quickly and erratically, her relief making it difficult to think clearly.

"Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager, Starship Alaska. Current status: crashed and shipwrecked somewhere…not nice." It was an understatement. "Been here a year, rest of the crew missing. Provisions good but keen to move on."

The words stumbled and fell on each other in her rush to speak them. She had a fear that he would disappear before the rescuing part even came.

"A year?" He asked, his voice almost concerned. "Are you okay? Are you under attack?"

Oswin faltered. "Some local life forms." She glanced over her shoulder at the door that looked weaker than ever. "Been keeping them out."

"Do you know what those life forms are?"

She had a feeling she knew them better than any other human ever had, or ever would. She looked back at the screen.

"I know a Dalek when I hear one, yeah." She answered.

"What have you been doing on your own against the Daleks for a year?" He asked, his voice both amazed and suspicious. Oswin didn't blame him. She'd be suspicious herself.

She had nothing to offer but the truth.

"Making soufflés?" She said weakly.

"Soufflés? Against the Daleks?" He laughed, clearly amused, and Oswin felt warmth in her heart for the first time in what felt like an eternity. She smiled, too. His tone shifted a bit with his next question. "Where'd you get the milk?"

Oswin faltered, but before she could answer, she heard the line go dead.

"No! Hello! Hello?" She pleaded, kneeling to fiddle with the knob once more. But she heard nothing.

She fell into a slight panic.

"No, please, no," she whispered, hurrying over to the chair. She picked up her keyboard and frantically pulled up the map. "Please, please, please! Come on!"

When she saw the three dots that indicated life forms heading towards the planet, she could hardly move.

"They're here," she said out loud. She grinned, her heart filling to impossible size. "Someone is coming."

She used abandoned Daleks, lying in the snow, to find them. She hacked into one close to them and moved from eyestalk to eyestalk until she was as close as she wanted. She spotted a man, lying on his back in the snow. He lifted his head slowly, groaning, and then let out a breezy laugh.

Oswin hurried to turn on the PA system so she could talk. But in her excitement, she pressed the wrong button, and Carmen filled the room. She quickly shut it off.

"Sorry! Sorry, pressed the wrong switch!" She apologized.

He lifted his head in astonishment.

"Soufflé Girl?" He demanded incredulously. _Oi, what a chin,_ she thought with delight.

She smiled. "You could always call me Oswin, seeing as that's my name."

How long had it been since someone had addressed her using that name? She didn't want to think about it.

He rolled over so he was even with the eyestalk and winced.

"You okay?" Oswin asked.

He pressed his face against the eyestalk. "How're you doing that, eh?" He demanded, peering at her inquisitively. He tapped on the glass. "This is Dalek technology!"

Oswin glanced down indifferently.

"Well, it's very easy to hack." She said offhandedly.

When he informed her that, no, it wasn't, Oswin felt a strange uneasiness.

* * *

The rest of the events were almost too unexpected to believe.

She felt an ease with this man that she knew could only be because he was, indeed, her savior. After almost a year of no contact with anyone, she was breathless with relief to be able to talk, to laugh, to flirt again. To have communication of any type at all.

The man who, as he informed her cheekily, was called _the Doctor_ had a sense of humor that tickled Oswin. He was fun to tease, and after all, Oswin was great at teasing. She felt more like herself in that moment than she had felt in hundreds of days. She could breathe again.

Oswin lost contact with the man with the bowtie and chin, but quickly located another person. Her panic ebbed away immediately once she knew she wasn't alone again. She found him backed up, about to face the wrath of the Daleks.

"Run! The door at the end, run for it. They're waking up, but they're slow. The door at the end. Just run. Now! Now! Now!" She shrieked.

He listened, and once he was out of danger, Oswin spoke up again.

"So, anyway, I'm Oswin. What do I call you?" She asked. She couldn't believe that she was talking to a second person when, just twenty-four hours ago, she was subconsciously convinced she'd never talk to anyone ever again.

"Uh, I can't remember," he panted. After a moment, he seemed to regain himself. "Uh, Rory."

Oswin felt affection for this man, because she knew what it felt like to be so scared you couldn't remember who you were.

"Lovely name, Rory! First boy I ever fancied was called Rory." She lied. She grinned at Rory's confused response.

"Okay." He said.

Oswin faltered. "Actually, she was called Nina." She felt her stomach drop, just a little bit. "I was going through a phase."

A phase that grew into something more that Oswin wouldn't let herself think about then. She had people to talk to now, and she didn't need to dwell on sadness.

"Just flirting to keep you cheerful!" She quipped.

_Or me cheerful, either one,_ she thought.

* * *

She was lost, for a moment.

"Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract love, add anger. Doesn't she seem a bit too angry to you?"

But all she could remember were red-tinged nightmares, and then she got this sense that nothing good had ever existed.

* * *

She guided and teased. The Doctor spoke to her with an innocence and age that both complimented and contradicted. Talking to him felt right, felt good. Oswin told herself that it was because she had been alone for so long, but deep down she wondered if it was because this was somehow supposed to happen. She felt drawn to Chin Boy, like he was someone she had seen in a dream before, or read about in a book once.

When they figured out how to leave the Asylum, after all the running and fear and screaming, Oswin was suddenly petrified. She made a selfish mistake.

"I can do it from here, as soon as you come and get me."

She could hear his wince.

"No, just drop the force field and come to us." He argued.

But didn't he get it? There was no man who watched over the entire universe. There was no man who rescued those who were lost. There was no one at all, and Oswin knew that, because she had been stuck here and no one had cared at all. It was up to her to save herself, and if that meant refusing to help them until they came and got her, so be it. She didn't want to be like Garfunkle in her nightmare. She didn't want to die here, alone, pointlessly.

"There's enough power in that teleport for one go. Why would you wait for me?" She demanded.

"Why wouldn't I?" He asked.

Wrong answer.

"No idea. Never met you."

She felt like a liar again.

* * *

She packed her bag with the following things: her recorder, her half-written letters, and her clothes.

She was folding up the letters neatly when she heard the Doctor's voice.

"Oswin, I think I'm close."

She hurried over to the screen and eyed the map.

"You are! Less than twenty feet away." She became aware of the areas surrounding his current location. "Which is the good news."

It all got very bad very quickly. She couldn't explain her heart. Because as she watched the Daleks wake up and descend upon him, she felt like it was really her. She tried to tell herself it was because if he were to die, she would be stuck here, but she knew that couldn't really be the whole story. Because one of the other two would have to come back and try if he failed.

She wouldn't admit to herself how scared she was when she failed to figure out a way to open the door. She couldn't remember, couldn't remember, couldn't—oh.

The solution came to her quickly. She hurried over and began hacking into the path web. It was almost pathetically simple. She deleted him from their minds effortlessly and gladly. Any predator of the Daleks was welcome to any leverage over them.

He was amazed while she was more preoccupied with finally getting the door open. He demanded answers as he watched the Daleks roll away. She quickly explained about the path web, not surprised to find that he was familiar.

"I hacked into it, did a master delete on all the information connected with the Doctor."

He looked appropriately shocked. It made her smile once more, because for whatever reason, she liked impressing this man with the huge chin.

"You made them forget me?" He asked in disbelief.

"Good, huh?" She grinned. She flipped the appropriate switch. "And here comes the door."

The Doctor was still surprised as he stood, slowly.

"I tried hacking into the path web, even I couldn't do it."

Oswin smirked. "Come and meet the girl who can."

She was finding out that she could do a lot more than she ever thought she could.

She couldn't stop smiling as the door opened. She was going home. After all of this, she was going home. She had made it, somehow. And it wasn't too late either. Perhaps she could see the universe after all.

She beckoned him in and then hurried over to an empty suitcase. She flung a spare recorder battery into it and then glanced over her shoulder, stopping to see him standing just outside.

"Hey, you're right outside, come on in!" She urged.

She went back to packing. Tension pooled in her spine at his next words.

"Oswin, we have a problem." The deep, gravely tone to her voice made her heart drop. She turned around and stared at him.

"No we don't," she said quickly, trying to keep from panicking. "Don't even say that. Joined the Alaska to see the universe, ended up stuck in a shipwreck first time out." She swallowed her panic and flung aside the cloth she was holding. She ran over to the screen. "Rescue me, Chin Boy, and show me the stars!" She pleaded.

But something was not right. Despite the slowly fading smile on her face, she could feel it in her spine, on her skin, in her stomach.

"Does it look real to you?" He asked.

The words shifted inside of her, grating on her heart.

"Does what look real?" She asked.

"Where you are right now. Does it seem real to you?"

She could feel the panic rising.

"It is real." She said. But why did she feel like a liar again? Why, why, why?

The ties holding up her heart severed with his next words and she felt it tumble. It landed hard in the pit of her stomach and down it went, straight to her toes, and suddenly she couldn't see anything straight. She felt liable to fall over, or throw up, and her chest was flooding with pain and panic.

"It's a dream, Oswin."

_No. _

"You dreamed it for yourself, because the truth was too terrible."

Suddenly she could feel sharp wire digging into her skin, everywhere, and she could hear terrible, terrible things in her mind. But she couldn't move, or scream, or do anything but stare at this man who was lying to her. He had to be.

"Where am I?" She asked.

The feeling of being lost almost knocked the breath from her. Her panic was a rising tide and she was going to scream, if only she could remember herself long enough to remember how to do that. She felt she was slipping away and she wasn't sure where she was going or even _who _was going.

_No. _

"Where am I?" She breathed again. It came out more hysterical the next time. "Where am I?!"

He approached her slowly.

"Because you are a Dalek."

She felt that foreign anger once more. "I am _not_ a Dalek."

_("You shouldn't lie, Oswin. If you lie, no one will ever trust you, and then you'll be all alone." "I won't be alone. No one is ever alone, Nina.")_

_Ex—_

"I AM NOT A DALEK!"

_Ter— _

_No. No, get out, get out! _

"I'm human." She croaked.

"You were human when you crashed here. It was you."

She could feel the warmth from his hands.

How was that possible?

It was a warmth that filled her from head to toe but did nothing to soothe the horror she felt in every part of her.

"You climbed out of the pod, that was your ladder." He said gently.

It was almost like being slapped across the face. The memories came flooding back all at once, cramming into her brain, making her face hot and her head ache. She felt like she was exploding. She remembered how cold the metal bars of the ladder were as she climbed, and how she almost slipped because her hands were so sweaty. And then there was that feeling of not knowing where she was, the feeling that was always lurking in the corners of her heart ever since she was a little girl. She could feel her tears, hot on her clammy skin, as she heard them approaching. _Where am I?_

Oswin could hardly breathe.

"I'm human," she whispered, but she wasn't, was she?

_Exter—_

_No! No!_

"Not anymore." He said. "Because you're right. You are a genius. And the Daleks need genius. They didn't just make you a puppet, they did a full conversion."

She thought she was screaming, surely she was screaming, but all she heard in the quiet room was an empty, deflated gasp. She was with the Daleks again, underground, asking the question that no one answered because no one saved her, no one was there, and they forced her into that frame, and they pushed those wires into her body, and they – _please, no. _

"Oswin. I am so sorry."

She watched as he backed up from her, and the coldness was over her once more. She wanted to beg him to stay, to follow after him, but where was she? Where was she?

He turned to look at her. "But you are a Dalek."

It was the hatred and loathing in the way he said _Dalek_ that ultimately broke her. She gripped the back of the chair, breathing rapidly against her sickness and pain, and she glanced around her helplessly. No, he was lying, he fabricated those memories for her somehow, he had to! Because look! There's her suitcase, with her letters, and her recorder with three hundred and sixty-three days worth of ramblings! It couldn't have been fake, because each day was real and each day _hurt._ She couldn't have made up that pain. She was touching the chair! She was seeing it all! How could it be a dream?

_("Jewel's such a dreamer, Miss Oswin. I suppose that's why she's taken to you." "What d'you mean?" "Well, you're a dreamer, too. I can see it in your smile.")_

"The milk, Oswin. The milk and the eggs for the soufflés. Where, _where_ did it all come from?" He demanded.

_Eggs. _

"_I'm human." _

Terror unlike anything she had ever felt. Blood, objects searing and burying themselves into her skin, and _hatred. _Hatred that she wasn't even aware existed. And all the while she was screaming, screaming, screaming, even when her voice was no longer her own. "I AM HUMAN! I AM NOT A DALEK!"

_Eggs. _

She was growing angry, and it was the type of anger that didn't even have a reason.

"It wasn't real. It was never real."

The way he looked at her broke her heart but, no, it made her angry. It made her so angry she couldn't even stand it. She felt it overtaking her, along with searing pain and a panicked chorus of _I AM A DALEK! I AM A DALEK!_

She let them in, after all. She was burning alive with hatred.

"Ex..ter…min…ate."

It felt right, it felt good, and for once she didn't feel like she was fighting against anything at all. The hatred and anger was too much to handle, it was ripping her apart, skin from muscle and muscle from bone and—no! _Yes._

"Exter…minate."

Her head was filled with rage and her heart did not exist. Maybe it had been that way all along. This is what she was born for. This was her purpose. _I am a Dalek. _

"Oswin! Oswin! Listen, Oswin, you don't have to do this!"

"Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!" She shrieked.

But suddenly, the sight of him backed against the wall and her own weapon pointed at him pushed an emotion stronger than anger through. She stumbled back, her ears ringing, and fell back against the wall. She lowered her head and covered it with her hands because it hurt so badly, it hurt worse than anything she'd ever felt. She could feel such an angry, awful, hateful part of herself ripping at her common sense, the part of herself that she knew was Oswin. She didn't know who was going to win, and for that, she wept.

She pictured the last thing she'd seen—the Doctor backed against the wall, his death about to arrive via her hands—and she couldn't explain the sorrow that scene caused in her, or the sickness. Nor could she comprehend the hatred she suddenly felt, the hatred that took so much energy to fight back for this long and now was threatening to overtake her.

"Why do they hate you so much? They hate you so much. Why?"

She couldn't figure it out, because no matter how much hatred they had, she still had something that was beating it. A warmth, a kindness. Something inside of her cared about this man, and she knew that had to be true, because how else was she fighting the anger and the despite? There were two halves of her mind in battle, the part screaming for him to die painfully and slowly, and the part screaming to protect him, protect him, protect him. To die for him.

"I fought them many, many times." He answered.

_He is the savior of worlds, _she found herself thinking, and just like that, she was remembering her story to Jewel. "_Each time he saw someone was lost, he conspired to make them found again. And sometimes it didn't happen quite the way the person who was lost was expecting…Sometimes he saved them in subtle ways that those who were lost never even would have considered to have been saving at all. But always he made them found, always he showed them how to get back home again." _

There was a truth in it that made her head ring. The hatred surged and overtook her, just for a moment.

"We have grown stronger in fear of you." She told him, and for a moment she hated him so blindly she wanted him dead, because nothing hurt worse than this anger, this rage.

_Where is home?_ She thought. She clutched her head tightly and cried even harder, because she really didn't know. She was so lost. She just wanted it to end. _Please take me home, Doctor. I am so tired. _

"I know. I tried to stop." He whispered, his voice filled with regret.

The words slammed into her, because she knew. She knew, because she had tried to stop too. Tried to stop running, always running, but something was always pulling her along. She tried to stop this hatred, and she succeeded by lying to herself and by making herself more lost than she was before. She had been trying to stop for years, and now, it was time.

"Then run," she whispered suddenly, her eyes burning with tears.

"What did you say?" He breathed.

The hatred was slinking back into the shadows. She was feeling pride in this man, and hope, and something that felt too much like love to understand. She felt memories of dreams from a long time ago crowding her brain, but they were always too far for her to grasp. The only thing she was sure of was that, for once, she was sure of something. She was sure that this was what she was supposed to do. It hit her with a blinding clarity. She was supposed to save him, this impossible man, who traveled into the Asylum and made her feel so warm with only a touch. She was supposed to rescue him. She was human. She was, because she could feel agony and love rushing through her. She stood and hurried over to the chair.

She fiddled with the controls quickly.

"I've taken down the force field. The Daleks above have begun their attack. Run!"

He faltered, and it was in that that she knew she was right. He was the king in her stories, and he had brought her home. Her home was knowing who she was again.

"I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks, and I _am_ human." She said. "Remember me."

"Thank you," he gasped.

"Run!" She instructed. She fell back into the chair and watched him. Those gangly limbs, that ridiculous bowtie. She smiled, and the next words came naturally. "Run, you clever boy. And remember."

She watched their dots on the map. She didn't feel free until she saw him and his friends rise, onto the spaceship, far from the planet about to implode.

She pressed a palm over her racing heart.

"I'm happy," she said out loud. Her tears made searing paths down her cheeks, but for once, she didn't feel lost at all. "I made the soufflé. I _am_ the soufflé. And the Doctor is safe."

The last thing she thought was laced with so much affection and love that she knew she was right. She was not a Dalek. Not really.

_My Doctor. This is who I loved all along, and this is who loved me._


End file.
